Renegade

by Joel Shepherd

  “How? You can’t spare a shuttle, you lost one at Homeworld, and there was another still on the ground.”

  “AT-7 is not a military shuttle Lis, we can afford to spare it…”

  “No you can’t, Phoenix is supposed to have four shuttles, now you’ve got three. Losing one to drop me off is stupid, you can’t even deploy all of Major Thakur’s marines with three, let alone with two. And a civilian shuttle might come in handy if you’re on the run, what if you get to some other system and need to sneak your way in to some facility or planet? A civilian shuttle can do that, a military one’s got no chance.”

  “Then I’ll find another way,” Erik said firmly. “Lisbeth, you can’t stay here. Fleet’s going to try and kill us, do you understand that? Some of them will doubt HQ’s story, but most won’t. HQ will be panicking now — Phoenix wasn’t supposed to get away, they didn’t imagine this could happen, and having a flagship running through settled space spreading bad news about Fleet HQ is beyond a nightmare for them. You being aboard might have stopped them killing the shuttle where everyone can see it, but it’s not going to stop them trying to kill Phoenix where no one can.”

  “Erik,” Lisbeth said quietly. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to get you off the ship. And that’s final.”

  Lisbeth’s eyes blazed with temper. “For god’s sake, would you stop making this about me? What about you? What about your ship, what about all your crew? And what about all of our family? This is so much bigger than me being stuck on this ship Erik, this is some of the most important people in all human space trying to remove their biggest competitors by force!” She pointed outward, endangering the plugs in her arm. “You think I’ll be that much safer out there? You think you could arrange private transport back to Homeworld that could get me there alive? Or out of captivity by people who’ve shown they’ll stop at nothing to get their way?”

  “Then we’ll direct-signal some passing insystem freighter and transfer you to them…”

  “Erik you’re trying to hide! What a risk to take, for just one person!” Erik ground his teeth in frustration. Lisbeth clasped his hand with her other hand. “Don’t just talk about me. What are you going to do?”

  * * *

  They gathered in the Captain’s quarters, just off the bridge. From here, the Captain could get to the command chair in ten seconds if he wasn’t otherwise occupied. Sometimes even ten seconds wasn’t enough. The room fit eight, though it was a tight squeeze, like everything on a warship. Erik sat on the folding workdesk, a wall display giving visual feed of Argitori overlaid with status basics — vector-off-system-plane, solar relative velocity, alert status. Alert status now was orange, one below red, which was combat.

  The room was filled with people who would normally have answered to Captain Pantillo. Now more than ever, it didn’t seem real that Pantillo was gone. Erik ran third-shift, a glorified fill-in, someone to warm the seat and keep things ticking over until something bad happened, when the Captain would retake the seat. In meetings like this one, Erik typically sat to one side and took mental notes, keeping track of ways to be useful in supporting the people who ran the ship. Now he ran the ship, and all of these veterans, some of whom had been running these posts, or other posts like it for thirty years or more, were all looking at him.

  “We’re in the elliptical plane,” said Lieutenant Shahaim. “After the last burn we’re off projected entry by point three nine, and it’ll grow bigger the longer we drift.”

  “What are the odds someone saw that burn?” asked Second Lieutenant Geish.

  Shahaim shook her head. “Inside the plane the system’s pretty thick, they’d have to be real close to see it. So long as we don’t pull a major burn, or use major weapons — or jump, naturally — we should stay hidden.”

  Lieutenant Shahaim was first-shift Helm. Helm’s job was to plot course tracks for the pilot — the Captain — to fly, and to be the co-pilot and watch all those things the pilot could not. With no command staff available, Helm was next in line to fly the ship, as Shahaim had done. Second Lieutenant Geish usually sat second-shift Scan, but had now been promoted to first. Normally that post was filled by Lieutenant Kwok, but Kwok hadn’t come up to Fajar Station. Both Shahaim and Geish were in their sixties, and had been doing this a very long time.

  “What are the odds of hitting something?” Erik asked.

  Everyone looked at Lieutenant Kaspowitz. “For the next forty hours, pretty low,” said Kaspowitz, first-shift Nav. He was too tall for spaceships, really, and always looked hunched in small spaces. “After that, we get into the middle-belts, there’s a lot of dust, lots of rocks and ice. Quite a few mining bases. We’re not passing too close, but not everything’s on the charts. Lots of privateers in systems like this, you never know whose scan range we run into.”

  “In which case we’ll need to move,” said Erik. “Rooke?”

  “We’re looking,” said Second Lieutenant Rooke. “We’re running drones, it’s definitely in the five-panel, which means it clipped the mains and took a couple of feeds… core armour soaked most of it but there’s shrapnel damage. Fiddling around in there is hard, especially while we’re underway.” Rooke was second-shift engineering chief, again filling in for Lieutenant Chau, who hadn’t returned. Rooke was young, younger even than Erik, a tech-genius with IQ off the charts whose real passion was astrophysics, but with the war on had decided to channel his skills to the human cause. No one doubted he had the skills to be head engineer, but experience and temperament were another question.

  “The five panel is the real problem,” Rooke continued, glancing distractedly at the slate in his hands. “The jump lines are severed, clean through. There’s a two meter section just gone, no conductivity at all. That’s why we came out of jump sideways, the field was just… out of alignment.”

  “Can you fix it?” Erik asked.

  “We can patch it,” said Rooke with a wince. “But it’ll take… hell, I don’t know. Could take a week. But a complete fix needs docking and repair, proper facilities.”

  “And how safe would a patch be? If we need to jump again?”

  Rooke shrugged. “Should hold for one jump. Might hold for two, if we’re lucky. Three, no chance.” With a questioning gaze. ‘Where are we going, LC? How far do we need to jump?’ And a whole, huge bunch of other questions all wrapped up in that. When will I see my family again? If ever?

  Erik took a deep breath. He couldn’t put it off any longer. “Okay,” he said. “You’ll want to know why you’re here.”

  “I told them why we’re here,” said Major Thakur. She stood against a wall in more comfortable marine fatigues, jacket and sidearm. “I told them everything.”

  Erik nodded. And tried to put himself in their shoes. “Well then. Rather than me talking, I’m sure you’ll have questions. Fire away.”

  “What did you see?” said Geish. Broad-faced and troubled. “When you saw the Captain? I mean… how did they kill him?” Thakur hadn’t seen that bit, Erik recalled, and he’d not had time to tell her.

  “When I went to visit him,” he said. “They asked for me, you recall. Captain Sudip arranged it, or we thought he had.” Thakur nodded calmly. “I went through security, I had my dress uniform on, but couldn’t take a sidearm through the scanners. They took it, and… an escort took me to the Captain’s room. I thought he was sleeping. By the time I realised he wasn’t, I was already inside. It was a single shot to the back of the head, and I looked in my pocket and found a… well, it looked like a pen, but it smelled like a gunshot. They must have slipped it in my pocket as I went in. And I got bloody fingerprints all over it when I pulled it out, of course.” Bitterly. He couldn’t escape the feeling that somehow, this had been his fault. But who could have seen it coming? Who would have believed such a thing?

  “Did he suffer?” Kaspowitz asked quietly. Kaspo had been a favourite of the Captain’s. A great friend, to the extent that captains were allowed to have friends among
lower ranks… which everyone else was, when one was captain. Kaspo loved books too, and was funny and irreverent given the chance. Of all the first-shift bridge crew, Kaspo had always been warmest to Erik, and given his relationship with the Captain, Erik had no doubt they’d talked about him often. Between captain and senior bridge officer, that was to be expected and encouraged.

  “It looked point blank,” said Erik. “From the wound, I doubt he suffered. But he may have seen it coming, I don’t know.” Thakur frowned at him, as though guessing there was more. “There was a data chip in his front pocket. I thought if he’d seen it coming, he might have left something.”

  “Where is it?” asked Thakur.

  “I swallowed it. I didn’t see any other way to keep it, I was searched after they burst in. Nearly twenty-four hours ago now. When I get it back, we’ll read it and see if it’s anything.”

  “Can we afford to wait that long?” Rooke asked pointedly.

  “We’ll get it back from the plumbing filters,” Erik said drily. “I’m sure we’ve plenty of ways to keep busy before we stoop to those depths.” Another time, some might have smiled. Now, none did.

  “LC,” said Geish, still looking troubled. “If… I mean, how can you be sure HQ killed him? I mean…”

  “Because no one else had access,” Thakur cut him off. Her voice was unusually hard. “Because of the obvious effort to set up the LC with the murder weapon. Because of Fleet Admiral Anjo’s attempt to bribe the LC previously. Because they’re the only ones with anything close to means, motive and opportunity, and they’ve been orchestrating this whole thing from the beginning. What more do you need?”

  “There’s still so much we don’t know,” Geish objected. “The Captain had a lot of political friends, and there’s no telling who else might have wanted him dead.”

  “Like who?” said Thakur.

  “Well, like the LC’s friends. All these big business interests, who the hell knows what…”

  “You shut that down right there,” said Thakur, with a dead-level stare and a pointed finger. That was serious. Geish closed his mouth, but his eyes were defiant. “You don’t want to believe HQ did it, fine. You cast any aspersions on this man or his family, you’re crossing a line with me.” Pointing at Erik. “The LC pulled himself inside out trying to help the Captain, his family pulled a lot of strings to help, and his civilian sister in Medbay put her ass personally on the line to help us get out where a lot of decorated uniforms would not. None of us would have made it up here alive if not for her. Your difficulty accepting facts is not the LC’s problem. You push it far enough, it’ll become my problem.”

  Silence in the room. Discipline among spacer ranks on a ship was not typically the marine company’s responsibility. The situation was unprecedented, and Major Thakur laid it out so clearly that even the blind could follow — in the uncertainties of command and legitimate authority that had descended, she was the enforcer of discipline, and the guarantor of the lines of command that every ship needed to function. Her reputation alone was such to make that work without further threats. Hopefully.

  “I’m sorry we’re here,” said Erik. “I feel like I should have known, or done something more. But I can’t imagine what that might have been. I understand no one wants to be here. I forgive those of us who’ve already chosen not to be. To the rest of you who’d like to leave, I’ll do my best to accommodate that safely, sometime soon. But given what HQ have shown they’re willing to do to anyone who rocks their boat, I can’t guarantee that you won’t be safer staying here, even with half of Fleet out trying to kill us.”

  Silence as they considered that too. Second Lieutenant Geish clearly didn’t like it.

  “I’m going to try and find out what’s going on. We have a few clues. In time we may find more. My great uncle Thani Gialidis told me that he thinks this has something to do with our alien allies, and if anyone’s in a position to know, he is. Maybe the Captain found out something in that direction he wasn’t supposed to. In the meantime, we can safely presume that each of us on this ship has now been marked for death by humanity’s senior soldiers, either on Phoenix or off it. To stop that from happening, we’ll all have to do our jobs as well as we’ve ever done them. That’s what I ask of you now.”

  They all left, save for Thakur, who stayed until the door was shut. “That was well done,” said Erik. “I know it wasn’t for me personally, and I don’t take it that way. But to guarantee discipline… it was well done.”

  “No,” said Thakur. “You can take it a little personally if you want.” With a very faint smile. Erik blinked. “And don’t worry about Lisbeth with the crew. She can share my quarters, I’ve plenty of room and she’s entertaining company.”

  “I’d… thank you. That would be perfect. She does worship you, you know.” Edgily.

  Thakur shrugged. “She’s young. In her world, women aren’t like me. She seeks to test her own possibilities. Naturally she’s intrigued, yet she’s not the only one who learns.” Erik nodded slowly. “A few things you’ll need to know now that you’re acting-captain. Firstly, I hear things you don’t. Spacer crew won’t talk in front of me, but they talk in front of my marines, and my marines tell me things because ratting on spacers doesn’t count. For this reason, the captains who know most about their crew’s scuttlebutt are those captains with the best relationship with their marine commanders.”

  “I did know that,” Erik acknowledged. It was still a little confronting to hear it confirmed so baldly.

  “So,” said Thakur, “this relationship works best on first names, when we’re alone. I’m Trace.” She smiled and held out her hand. “Pleased to meet you properly, Erik.” Erik took her hand. The sheer nervelessness of the woman confounded him. Given what she’d just done, a matter of hours ago, in ship time at least. “Now, something’s still bothering you. Out with it.”

  Erik gave up on wondering how to put it, and drew himself up. Trace liked straight-shooting, he could do that. “You, going in shooting.”

  Trace nodded slowly. “What about it?”

  “I’m still not sure it was necessary. I don’t quite recall deciding to get into a shooting fight with my own commanders. Becoming a rebel. It seems you made that decision for me.”

  “I did,” Trace agreed. “It needed to be done.”

  “Why?”

  Trace considered him with narrowed eyes. “You’re truly asking?”

  “And my sister. You knew she worshipped you. You knew she’d do what you asked. She nearly got herself killed because of it, and may yet die because of it.” The strength of his fury surprised him, buried until he gave voice to it. That she’d interfere so bluntly in those things he valued most, and put his sister’s life in danger, and all without consulting him. He’d thought they were coming to respect each other, and this felt like betrayal.

  She frowned. “What about me makes you surprised by this? Did you think I was the ‘good guy’? The peaceful Buddhist meditating on a rock? What about my record and reputation gave you such an idea?”

  “It’s manipulative.”

  “And blowing someone’s head off isn’t?”

  “You had no right to put her in danger like that.”

  “Well perhaps I’m not as smart as you, but I can’t think of any other way we could have gotten out of there alive.”

  “That’s not the point!”

  “It’s entirely the point. It’s the only point. Secondly, perhaps you’d better ask yourself exactly what you’re angry at. Lisbeth is your sister, she’d do anything to help you just as you’d do anything for her, and I gave her the option of doing so. She’s a woman of legal age and she makes her own fate. You don’t come into it.”

  “You should have told me. She’s my sister, and you should have told me.”

  Trace gave him a look like he was a puzzle she was working on. Not an especially fascinating puzzle, but one she’d occasionally play with on her spare time. “Sure, maybe. But I was pretty sure you’d say no.
And then we’d be screwed.”

  “So you went behind my back?”

  “Absolutely. In that situation, with both the Captain and Huang still in play, you were only third-in-command, and on matters not directly related to ship command, I ranked you. I was considering the prospect of ground combat, should HQ make a move like they did, and ground combat is my speciality. I’m better at it than you are, and in hindsight I think the outcome shows it.”

  “And do I still have to worry about you going behind my back now?”

  “You can worry all you like,” Trace said coolly. “The question is, what are you going to do about it?”

  “Major,” Erik said firmly. “We’re not contemplating ground combat here. I won’t tolerate senior officers under my command going off half-cocked on their own initiative. Are we clear?”

  Trace smiled. “Won’t tolerate,” she repeated. “That’s good. I like the sound of that.” She put a finger in his chest. “The thing is, rich boy, you’ve got to mean it. You’re in charge now. I’ll back you one hundred percent if you’re truly in charge. But being in charge means doing everything necessary to ensure the survival of your crew, and the accomplishment of your goal. Right now your goal is to find out who killed the Captain and why.

  “That means making difficult choices, and putting people you care about in danger. If those decisions get too difficult for you, even when there’s no other call to make, then tell me now and we’ll put Shahaim in charge. You’re twice the pilot she is, but she can at least make a call — made a tough one coming here as she did.”

  “And if you don’t like my calls? You’re just going to go behind my back again?”

  “Not if you make the call,” Trace said firmly. “On Homeworld, you didn’t make one.”

  “You don’t know that, you didn’t ask me!”

  “I guessed. And I guessed correctly. Didn’t I?” With a hard, meaningful look. She put the finger back in his chest. “Two things the Captain taught me — always plan ahead, and always assume the worst. It shouldn’t be up to me to do that, yet on Homeworld it was. You don’t want me going around you again? Don’t need me to.”